San Clemente, Chile, offers invitation for O.C.'s version

A visitor from South America came calling Monday at San Clemente City Hall with stories about a community of 42,000 people that lies in an agricultural valley between the mountains and the sea, is known for its vineyards, its apples, its berries and its melons and has gained notoriety for purported sightings of UFOs.

It's San Clemente, Chile, and it has an attraction – the UFO Trail – that draws tourists eager to see strange lights in the sky. There also are 7,000-year-old native stone works, a nature park and easy access to the Andes Mountains for winter snow or summer hiking, said Justo Diaz, an employee of the city of San Clemente in Chile's Maule River region.

Diaz visited Monday evening with Mayor Bob Baker of Orange County's San Clemente and City Clerk Joanne Baade and left tourism brochures. He invited the mayor to visit. They exchanged gifts. Diaz inquired about starting a sister-city relationship.

"You are around the ocean and we are around the mountain, so I think we can share different things," Diaz told the mayor. It's one hour to the Andes and one hour to the beach from his San Clemente, he said.

"If I ever get to South America and Chile, I will come and visit," Baker said.

Since 1969, Baker's San Clemente has been sister city with another South American San Clemente – San Clemente del TuyÏ, an Atlantic beach town in Argentina.